| |
“I encourage
everybody I know to broaden their horizons,” says Mosby Barley,
a 28-year-old English major. “I tell my friends not to be afraid
to step out of their comfort zone.”
Stepping out of his comfort zone is exactly what Barley did when
he spent five months in Brazil last summer teaching English
through several language schools. After completing a crash
course in Portuguese at Bridge-Linguatec in Rio de Janeiro,
Barley became certified as a Teaching English as a Foreign
Language (TEFL) instructor and was able to live and work in a
country he’d always found fascinating.
“Most people don’t want to do the things I did, but I didn’t go
there with the idea that it was going to be a grand vacation. If
I had gone down there with that expectation, I would have been
back within a few weeks.
“There were a lot of challenges and lots of hard work, but I
knew on the front end that it wouldn’t be easy. I made many good
friends there. One day I’ll go back.”
While the Dade County resident has always enjoyed travel and has
had a yen for seeing other countries, his dream of becoming a
translator and interpreter was the impetus that spurred on the
trip.
While in Brazil, Barley lived briefly in Rio de Janeiro and then
in Santa Barbara d’Oeste, where he taught in the World Language
School in the neighboring town of Americana. |
 |
“I was in the position
of being a brand new teacher who was learning how to be a
teacher,” he reflects. “It changed me. And it gave me a greater
appreciation for what teachers go through. It’s much easier to
be a student than a teacher. As the instructor you have to
create lessons, which can take a lot of time, and you have to
seem like you know all the answers all the time.”
A student at Dalton State for the past two years, Barley admits
that his educational journey has been more of a winding road
than a straight path.
“It took me a long time to figure out what I wanted to do in
life,” he says. “Some people know in high school. But that
wasn’t me.”
A native of Georgia, Barley lived in Colorado during his last
three years of high school and spent his first semester of
college at Southwestern University in Texas. He later attended
Southern University in Collegedale, Tennessee, and Northwestern
Technical College in Walker County.
For a while, Barley dropped out of school because of financial
constraints and worked different types of jobs, including in
grocery stores, on construction sites and as a security guard.
“After working for a few years in dead end jobs, I discovered
that without a college degree, I wasn’t going to get very far,
or at least not be able to do what I want to do in life.”
He transferred to Dalton State in the summer of 2006 and has
found that he enjoys academics now much more than he did in the
past.
“My viewpoint has changed. I think college is fun now. Dalton
State has been my favorite of all the schools I’ve attended,”
says Barley, noting that its size, “not too big, not too small,”
provides ample course selection and accessibility to professors.
Barley plans to complete his associate degree at Dalton State
and then transfer to another University System of Georgia
institution to complete the degrees that he will need to pursue
his goals.
“I’m looking forward to going back to Brazil after I get more
experience under my belt. Once I have my degrees, I shouldn’t
have any trouble finding a job in the field.”
|
|
